But who were the ninja, really? That’s what John Man, a British travel writer and historian, set out to explore in his new book, Ninja: 1,000 Years of the Shadow Warrior. He spoke to TIME about the fighters behind the legend.

The amount of student loan debt and the rate of delinquency have been climbing for years now. If it seems like every new statistic is worse than the last, that’s because it is. Credit bureau TransUnion says more than half of student loan accounts…

Now it’s about to happen—albeit with less spectacular fireworks—right in our back yard. Back in 2011, astronomers spotted an interstellar gas cloud plunging more or less toward the Milky Way’s own supermassive black hole, which is about the mass of…

When Hollande huddles with Mali’s interim president Dioncounda Traoré he is expected to discuss French plans to let troops from neighboring African states take over policing operations of the country with a re-constituted and –trained Malian army,…

Who says nothing gets done at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland? As the weeklong winter fest, which costs tens of thousands of dollars to attend, has grown over the past decade, it has become as much about dealmaking as about…

A new Australian national flag has been proposed to replace the current design of a blue field with the Union Jack and six stars, in an effort to “move on” from the country’s British heritage, reports the Daily Telegraph.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made it crystal clear Wednesday that the social networking juggernaut has a better working relationship with hardware giant Apple than it does with Web search leader Google. The 28-year-old billionaire said his company…

In the battle for the title of best dog breeds, it’s the big guys who came out on top this year. Take a look at the pups who nuzzled their way into the American Kennel Club’s most popular list for 2012.

OK, let’s get this straight: Turner relinquished her U.S. passport for tax reasons, only she is not going to say so because otherwise she would get in deep ____ with the IRS. She didn’t make this decision lightly. She didn’t do it because she is…

The most telling part of Wednesday’s Senate hearing about guns came at the start, in an exchange between Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy and Wayne LaPierre, the head of the National Rifle Association. Leahy wanted to know whether LaPierre would agree to…

Now the question is whether other giant clouds in the vicinity are similarly short on newborn stars. There are plenty of young, bright stars in the area, so they must have come from somewhere — but why should one cloud be comparatively barren and…

First of all, it seems to me that if the couple is sharing the household chores that most likely means that they are both working or both have multiple things going on in which case THAT would be the cause to less sex. It is absolutely absurd to say…

A year ago, JCPenney promised an end to “fake prices” and the usual retailer mind games played to make customers think they’re getting a deal. Now that the ambitious attempt to wean customers off endless discounting and markdowns has proved to be a…

Plenty of so-called conventional wisdom isn’t really wisdom, especially when it comes to travel spending. The myth: Book your plane ticket as far ahead as possible. The reality: The conventional wisdom that the early bird gets the worm was debunked…